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Chapter VICommunity Informatics

Larry StillmanMonash University, Australia

Randy StoeckerUniversity of Wisconsin, USA

Copyright © 2008, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

introduction

Researchers and practitioners use a wide range of terms when they discuss community involvement with information and communications technolo-gies (ICTs). Common (English-language) terms include ‘community networks,’ ‘community computing,’ ‘community information networks,’ ‘civic networking,’ ‘community technology,’ ‘community computer networks,’ ‘online neigh-borhood network,’ ‘virtual community,’ ‘online community,’ ‘community e-business,’ and most recently, ‘community informatics.’

Since the late 1990s, the term ‘community informatics’ has come into use amongst many academic researchers as an overarching label for the academic study of projects and initiatives which deliberately engage community groups and organizations with ICTs. Evidence of the term’s acceptance in academic and research circles is found in the titles of at least one academic journal and the language of its articles (the Journal of Community Informatics), as well as in community informatics conferences and workshops held in a number of countries, university research cen-tres, moves towards an ethics statement, and an entry in Wikipedia developed collaboratively by researchers and practitioners in the field. While

many still use the term ‘community technology’ or its variants when referring to practice activity, community informatics has definitely become embedded as an academic reference point.

However, community informatics has not yet achieved a stable set of findings or core questions which are commonly used to conduct research. Some practitioners even consider it a form of so-cial movement. Others see it as little more than a convenient label for pragmatic funding and policy purposes (Graham, 2005). Another sympathetic critic regards it as a ‘woefully underdeveloped’ field ‘driven more by anecdotal reports and story-telling’ than effective theory (Stoecker, 2005a).

background

The community informatics ‘movement’ can be traced to the United States and Europe in the 1970s and 1980s, when local communities began establishing tele-centers and local dial-up bulletin board networks. The scene exploded in the 90s with the development of the World Wide Web (Milio, 1996; Morino, 1994) and the development of virtual community networks, particularly in the United States, that no longer had a local geographic base. And as if by osmosis, in countries like Australia,

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Italy, or New Zealand, enthusiastic individuals or people engaged in the public information services copied models which led to the establishment of public internet service provider services as well as public online services with community content.

There is no authoritative history of how the in-ternational ‘movement’ arose, but David Wilcox’s documentation of linkages and tensions between technically-focused academics and community-oriented practitioners in the United Kingdom and North America in the late 1990s gives some idea of the mix of social visionaries, academics and others who serendipitously met face-to-face and online and formed something of an shared early vision of what might be (Wilcox, 2001). In the decade from the mid-1990s, governments in countries such as Australia, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, the European Community, and Latin America began experimenting with new ICT opportunities as a way of enhancing ideas about ‘e-society,’ ‘e-government,’ or e-democracy.’ Interest in ICTs for development is emerging in many third world countries. At the highest policy level, the UN’s World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) (www.itu.int/wsis) reflects many governments’ attempts to develop visions for particular uses of ICTs for economic and social development. However, long-term sustainability and investment for projects in many countries continues to be a problem.

issuEs in community informatics

Defining Community Informatics

Academic information systems and management systems professionals have popularized the term community informatics, where it has been seen as akin to other forms of informatics such as health informatics, and thus potentially providing an over-arching conceptual and theoretical base for social and community interventions with technology. The use of such a term has also enabled them to carve out a particular niche in academia. Thus:

Community informatics pays attention to physical communities and the design and implementation of technologies and applications, which enhance and promote their objectives. CI begins with ICT, as providing resources and tools that communities and their members can use for local economic, cultural and civic development, and community health and environmental initiatives among others. (Gurstein, 2000, p. 2)1

Much writing reflects reporting about social in-terventions beginning with technology, rather than more reflective or critical abstraction and research about the relationship between communities and technology or social and economic structures that underpin such relationships. The former form of research reflects the location of many researchers in the information sciences, rather than social or community services and development disciplines in which there is a more robust theoretical base from which to consider issues such as human agency, its relationship to technology, the very nature of community practice, and the nature of social change. Thus, disciplinary differences about how such key concepts as community, human agency, or very concept of technology can only be resolved or at least explored through much more interdisciplinary dialogue (Pigg, 2005).

the digital divide

The notion of digital divide—between individu-als and communities that have access to skills, knowledge and technological infrastructure and those who do not—was a prominent policy in many countries in the 1990s.

The divide was seen as an impediment to democratic participation and social or economic development. Funds were poured into a variety of policy initiatives in many Western countries, including Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, though substantial public funding has by and large been ended for such programs. At the highest international level, the World Summit on the Information Society reflects the United Nation’s attempt to develop an inter-national dialogue about connectivity for citizens in all countries.

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The general reasoning for such a policy and funding change is that the digital divide no longer exists, given the apparent widespread uptake of the Internet and the dot.com crash has tempered enthusiasm for technology speculation by gov-ernment. However, the counter-argument is that pockets of ICT disadvantage do continue to exist (for example, the factors of age and ethnicity have been identified as significant in Sweden (Ferlander & Timms, 2006), and such socially-based issues cannot be solved by market or technical solutions. Salvador and Sherry, from the perspective of Intel researchers, point to the lack of an inclusive ‘cor-porate intuition,’ which inhibits the inclusion of a complex experience of community needs in the design of technical systems (Salvador & Sherry, 2004, p. 83)

Furthermore, from a public benefit perspective, many would argue that policy has had short-term expectations and the lack of sophisticated policy apparatuses to better understand that community technological development is closely linked to long-term investment in social and community infrastructure, rather than technical infrastructure alone. Such policy initiatives, however, are not con-sidered as appropriate by neo-liberal governments which are loath to invest in social infrastructure or recognise embedded disadvantage. Indeed, a preferred term in policy use is now ‘Digital inclu-sion’ as expressed in the UK’s Digital Inclusion strategy, in which social and voluntary sector organizations are seen to act in partnership with government and business to include all in society, though direct resource allocations do not match the policy rhetoric (Cabinet Office (UK) 2006).

Among western countries, only New Zealand continues to openly recognize that a digital divide still exists and that access to technology is an important aspect of social inclusion for its com-munities (Government of New Zealand, 2005; Williamson, 2005). And in India, the Mission 2007 program is another example of the challenge be-ing taken up in the developing world while many developing countries, government and academ-ics are increasingly interested in what is called development informatics.

Another recent interpretation of the digital di-vide is for people with disabilities who are excluded from effective participation in the benefits of ICT their well-being. There are several identifiable reasons for this, including the cost of assistive technology (for example, text-to-speech readers), non-compliant design of websites (particularly from e-government), and technology which do not meet recognised standards such as that of the World Wide Web Accessibility Initiative. Alongside such technical issues low incomes, educational levels, and social isolation amongst many people with disabilities are a major inhibitor to effective use (Goggin & Newell, 2006).

Community as a Structure

Community informatics primarily works to im-prove real, and occasionally, virtual communi-ties. The meaning of ‘community’ is one of the continuing and irresolvable debates in sociology (Strath, 2001), but for the purposes of this entry, we assume that ‘community’ is the focus of some form of social practice or intervention among groups and individuals in a local area, and particularly, ‘the people with the problem,’ frequently people in poverty or disadvantage, ethnic minorities, or at a disadvantage because of other social or geographic isolation (Stoecker, 2005b, p. 45). In such a context, community-based organizations, outsider service organizations, local governments, and multi-organizational coalitions have been in-volved with establishing local computing centers, providing computer and Internet use training, building community websites and bulletin boards, and even creating local wireless clusters. These efforts vary significantly in the extent to which they involve the actual community residents in the implementation process.

The hope is that the tremendous and variable opportunities offered by ICT communication will permit people to develop in independent, new and unexpected ways. However, it is erroneous to think that ICTs can entirely substitute for face to face local relationships that are the foundation for solv-ing local problems. It is important to understand

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the interaction of various ICT interventions with local economic factors, patterns of employment, demographic patterns, gender relationships, or patterns of family life.

Ethics issues

Recently, there have been moves towards the development of an ethics statement2, in line with practice statements in other fields such as program evaluation in many countries for ethical behavior in working with individuals and communities. An additional dimension to this is work with indig-enous or tribal communities. Indigenous peoples such as the Maori in New Zealand, Australian Aborigines or tribal groups in South America have a history of exploitation of their cultural and physical capital by outsiders, and inappropri-ate interventions with ICTs are no exception to this. Ethics statements should include a specific reference to the need for developing collaborative processes for ensuring cultural safety and cultural competence in working with diverse communities (Stillman & Craig, 2006).

The Concept of Technology

As noted, until very recently, professionals have seen the practice of community informatics essentially as a box and wire application to be installed and magically accepted by communi-ties. This viewpoint is reflective of traditional professional cultural practices where designers at a remove from the ‘users’ or other important social factors and influences that affect human capacity and behavior. The insights of researchers concerned with a better understanding technology as a complex ‘basket’ of socially-constructed and emergent human-machine relationships are now familiar in the study of ICTs in the business world (Orlikowski, 1992, 2000) and can be fruitfully applied to the study of communities’ relationships and constructions of technology.

social capital

A recent and widely read review of community informatics evaluations in a number of countries

identified five key dimensions that also bear some relationship to intensive work that has been done concerning the meaning of community-building and capacity in the health field, including health informatics. These dimensions are: (1) enhancing strong democracy; (2) increasing social capital; (3) empowering individuals; (4) revitalizing a sense of community; and (5) providing economic develop-ment opportunities. (O’Neil, 2002; Parker, Eng, Schulz et al., 1999). Many community informatics projects likewise work to improve any or all of these factors, through the use of ICTs. Practitio-ners and researchers frequently attached the term ‘social capital’ to such factors, mainly referring to social networks (Coleman, 1988; Putnam, 1995). Many community informaticians view ICTs as positively impacting such networks. There are critics, however, who charge that the focus of social capital in community informatics is on building social networks for economic develop-ment. This can undermine social networks that provide community bonds, as they may further divide a community into business owners and wage workers, or community computing center controllers, and end users.

Effective use

Community informaticians see intangibles such as improvements in personal relationships, expan-sion of lifestyle options, or the development of personal goodwill (the stuff of social capital) as a result of the effective use of ICTs in communi-ties. What is meant by ‘effective use’ is subject to debate. Usually, it means the effective installation and management of technical infrastructure, or technocratic and top-down ‘social facilitation’ that can be evaluated through more traditional quantitative or managerial evaluation approaches (Gurstein, 2003, p. 7). In contrast, socially effec-tive use is a more complex thing that begins with the community itself, in conjunction with the researcher exploring and developing technologi-cal opportunities and at the same time, develop-ing its own methods of evaluation of the social effectiveness of the technology as well as local economic or other impacts. The latter approach means that researchers and practitioners coming

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from a more traditional management or informa-tion technology background need to learn new skills in community-based research. (Stoecker & Stillman, 2006).

Community Based-Research and Community Technology

One of the more interesting aspects of community informatics is its attempts to integrate participa-tory forms of research and design in community technology. Prominent in these attempts have been the “Computer Professionals for Social Responsi-bility Participatory Design” conferences, and the increasingly widely used practice of community-based research.

Community-based research (CBR), also called community-based participatory research, action research, participatory action research, participa-tory research, and a variety of other things, engages community members or community organizations in the research process itself (Strand, Marullo, Cutforth et al., 2003). Ideally, community members come up with the questions, employ indigenous research methods where possible, and connect the research to social action. In community informatics, the process begins with a research project exploring a community’s information or technology issues. That research will help to better understand a problem and it possible interventions. Such research can also be used to evaluate com-munity informatics projects and, if done right, can be used to improve the project rather than to just grade it at the end.

Because CBR and CI have a joint emphasis on the community, and because both have, at least in part, an information focus, their combination seems natural to many community informaticians, though as already observed, skills in community-based research cannot be assumed, but need to be consciously acquired. It is as difficult to implement true community control over the research as it is to assure control over the community technology process, however, and both CBR and CI have a long way to go in that regard.

Sustainability

Sustainability has been a bug-bear of community informatics activity (Day, 2005) , particularly when linked to funding arrangements. Consistent-ly, governments are accused of taking a short-term view of ICT investment in communities, with the expectation that financial long-term sustainability will magically appear, particularly on the back of social capital or community volunteerism.

Of course, the problem is more complex that that. While financial resources are important, sustainability should also be understood to be related to the sustainability of the structures found in community organizations, large and small, and how the relationships and human or physical resources and skills in such organizations are brought to bear to develop ongoing socio-technical networks. The availability of strategic advice and technical support are critical success factors in community-based initiatives, as is the integration of an electronic community network structure into its local community. When coupled with interest in triple-bottom line sustainability and account-ability (economic, social, and environmental per-formance), the picture is even more challenging. Its resolution will necessitate new approaches from policy makers in government for example, who are reluctant to engage in long-term, rather than start-up funding, based on flawed assumptions about communities’ capacities to develop financially independent and sustainable network.

futurE trEnds

It is likely that academic research and activity will be continue to be closely linked to funding opportunities from either academic or government resource bases and that the capacity for indepen-dent initiatives will be somewhat hampered by overriding academic or policy agendas which tend to take a top-down rather than bottom up or collab-orative approach. Projects funded by government will continue to be dependent upon policy whims

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and preferences, including interest in what are seen as cutting-edge technological innovations, driven by commercial imperatives. Notwithstanding the push to focus on what is new, community infor-matics is likely to continue to work for the greater public and community interest in promoting and supporting the widespread use of all forms of ICT for all communities, particularly communities on the other side of the digital divide.

The increasing spread of ICTs through all levels of society, and the increased commercialization and privatization of public space (including elec-tronic space) may mean that there is less interest in research activity about community impacts as ICTs are normalized into the private home and business.

Independent community networks will need to find sources of sustainability in their local com-munities and this too may mean that opportunities for experimentation and risk will be hampered.

conclusion

As a new label for both research and practice that crosses the intersection between community development and information technology, com-munity informatics faces both a challenge and an opportunity.

The challenge involves balancing the emphasis on theoretical questions developing among com-munity informatics researchers, with the practical efforts of community informatics practitioners. Indeed, that challenge is already being addressed in the Journal of Community Informatics, as the editorial group works to provide space for writing about both research and practice.

The opportunity centers on bringing together the highly technical field of information technol-ogy—a field that it is mathematical in its precision and highly specialized in its terminology, and somewhat at a remove from consideration of the day-to-day human dimension in technology—with various theories and practices of community work. This field is comfortable with the unpredictability of human relationships and steadfast in its com-mitment to working with people’s own language and experience.

So far community informatics seems comfort-able with the challenge and welcoming of the op-portunity. As the field matures, and if it is to have any lasting influence, we are likely to see new forms of community that more consciously integrate technology into their everyday practice, and new forms of technology more consciously designed to sustain communities in all their forms.

futurE rEsEarch dirEctions

What is the future of community informatics re-search? There are two possible futures, propelled by the dialectical tensions between the community focus and the informatics focus. From the perspec-tive of the informatics focus, the emphasis will be on researching new technologies. Particularly now that the problem of access is being portrayed as solved by conservative governments and their corporate allies, the push will be on to concentrate on the more technical questions that are of more use to such institutions, rather than on processes and technologies that could counter their power. Given the current push toward unified mobile technologies, we are likely to see more research on social networking supported by such hand-held technologies, mostly to inform marketers. A particularly troubling future direction, one consciously disavowed by most community in-formaticians but still making use of their theories, will be research on tracking technology to custom-ize advertising. Such research could perfect the means to know where any consumer is and even what they are doing at any time through tracking the uses of handheld technologies that can make phone calls, buy goods and services, and send and receive locational data.

From the perspective of the community focus, however, the inequalities that persist both within and between countries will continue to motivate community-based initiatives to redress those inequalities. Those initiatives will both keep the issue of technology access on the front burner and will drive new community-based technology innovations. The pressure from this perspective will be to continue basic research on technology access, which has moved from a focus on any

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Internet access to now a focus on broadband access. The future is likely to consider access to both short and long distance wireless access. Given the privacy concerns being created by the informatics trends described above, we may see an increased emphasis on how to protect people from corporate manipulation on the one hand and outright government control on the other. As the open source software movement slowly gains momentum globally, the possibilities for further open source software development informed by a community-driven process should also slowly increase.

An increased attempt to consider the concepts, techniques, and research experience of community development and community organization would greatly benefit the conceptualization and imple-mentation of community informatics projects for those coming from an information science sand management perspective. This could be linked to a related familiarity with participative qualitative research methodologies and the field of program evaluation. Research and practice in these areas could take the field away from somewhat simplistic and technocratic assumptions about the uptake and use of technologies in different environments.

Furthermore, as community informatics devel-ops as a field, its theoretical acuity should increase. This will allow researchers to increase their rec-ognition of the issues of power, gender, ethnicity and class and how these affect decision-making and action, will provide a more realistic picture of how and why some projects succeed and fail, in both developed and developing countries.

For those coming from the community de-velopment or organization perspective, greater familiarity with the language, concepts, and pro-cesses through which technologies are designed and implemented will help practitioners build better relationships with developers of products intended for community uptake.

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tErms and dEfinitions

Community Based Research: Community-based research (CBR), also called community-based participatory research, action research, par-ticipatory action research, participatory research, and a variety of other things, engages community members or community organizations in develop-ing research questions that address community issues, designing research methods, carrying out the research, and using its results.

Community Development/Community Or-ganization: Community development, (also called community organization), is a range of practices which aim to work with local communities to improve the quality of life, ranging across many areas, including housing, employment, help, and social connection. Self-help and empowerment often associated with community development. Community development often works through neighborhood, block, village or other formal and informal structures.

Community Informatics: As a practice field, aims, through the use of ICTs in conjunction with community development practices, to improve the life of local communities, though it can also work

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Community Informatics

to create virtual communities as an adjunct to local connections and networks. As an emerging academic field, Community Informatics studies and theorizes the role and influence of technology in community settings.

Digital Divide: The gap between ICT haves and have nots, whether through lack of direct access to infrastructure such as computers of adequate connection, or sufficient skills and training to take advantage of ICTs. The cost of connectivity (computers, software, broadband, and support) is also a contributory factor to the divide. Disability or cultural and linguistic factors such as the lack of support or content in minority or national lan-guages, can also contribute to the divide.

Effective Use: The use of ICTs in conjunc-tion with social and community development techniques.

Social Capital: Robert Putnam, a key writer on social capital, defines social capital as the ‘connec-tions among individuals—social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them’ as a resource that can be drawn upon the rebuilding or strengthening of communities. (Putnam 1995). From a community informatics perspective, social capital should also be defined as a community resource that is developed in partnering, rather than exploitative relationships with communities.

Sustainability: Sustainability is the extent to which an intervention lasts over time, and

particularly after the main change agents who implemented the intervention are no longer pres-ent. The sustainability of community informatics projects is dependent upon several factors, includ-ing external and internal funding support for the cost of ongoing hardware, software and staff, the ICT skill base (paid and volunteer), the manage-ment of ICT-people interactions, and the degree of support for ICTs learning and innovation. More broadly, ICT sustainability in communities can be linked to concerns about environmental and social responsibility.

EndnotEs

1 This definition is reminiscent of the broader field of social informatics, a term particularly associated with the work of Rob Kling, though Community Informatics ideally attempts to move the perspective from technology-to-people to one which looks at people, then technology: ‘Social informatics is a field that is the new working names for the interdisciplinary study of the design, uses, and consequences of information technologies that takes into account their interaction with institutional and cultural contexts’ (Kling, 2000, p. 218)

2 See (Draft) Code of Ethics for Community Informatics Researchers, http://vancouver-community.net/lists/arc/ciresearchers/2006-07/msg00024.html, 27 July 2006.